American Single Malt | 48% ABV
Score: 2/10
Avoid.
TL;DR
Bottom shelf meets back of cabinet
My two drinks of choice combined
I have been writing for Dramface for about a year and a half, and each time I finish a piece I glance at our scoring system to be sure that my thoughts are in line with the score I place on the review. I have only given one 9/10 (the pricey but magnificent Bunnahabhain I purchased at the distillery), and until today the lowest score I have given is a 4/10 for a handful of bottles.
There have been very few Dramface reviews that have dipped below a 4/10, but I have to say that I couldn’t ever really fathom that I would encounter a bottle that would score lower than a 4/10.
After finishing the tasting and nosing of this whisky, I thought long and hard to recall prior whisky experiences that were of such poor quality. Certainly, there have been a number of bourbons, to my palate at least, that were nothing more than lighter fluid or liquefied sugar cubes laced with pepper or some other bite-forward aspect.
In contrast, I could only think of one single malt experience that was horrific. Oh, I’ve had poor bottles. Some not up to snuff, yes. Really bad? Sure. There was the Westland I tried and reviewed which started out as putrid but rebounded to having some promise. But after thinking a bit, only one that would be considered terrible. That terrible single malt experience came when I was at my place of whisky nirvana; enjoying time on Islay.
Mrs. Shaw and I still feel the pull of Islay to this day. We want to go back and spend weeks there, if not permanently relocate. I think I mentioned in a prior review that during our trip in 2022 my wife looked at me one day while we were walking along a beach on Islay and asked, “can’t we simply call for the dog and not go home?” Yes, the whisky and the distilleries were magical, but also most everything else there was magical too.
And then, we had dinner in Bowmore one evening.
I don’t remember the restaurant, but it was a stone’s throw from the distillery. We had wrapped up another magnificent day on the island, and sat down for an evening meal. The food was wonderful. As for a dram afterwards, I looked at the bar and, knowing we were in Bowmore, I wanted to try some liquid from Bowmore’s namesake distillery. I had never had a drop of Bowmore cross over my lips, and was intrigued by the legend and lore of this venerated and historic distillery. I ordered a dram of Bowmore 12.
It was more than a bit of effort to get that dram down. A struggle. The nose – as I recall – brought back memories of the locker room for my high school’s baseball team. Many of us didn’t bring our dirty, sweaty, and soiled uniforms and clothes home every day and during warm spells, that locker room had an acrid and foul smell that would curdle milk. At the restaurant in Bowmore, I remember telling my wife that was the sensation I was getting on the nose. With courage, I managed to get the glass to my lips. As I put effort in to get through the dram, I did manage to scribble some tasting notes onto my tablet. This is what I wrote:
“Dirty and soured Lagavulin. Taste is sweet-ish peat that quickly devolves into acrid and soil taste. Putting wet dirt into your mouth.”
Leave it to say, between the nose and the tasting notes from that Bowmore 12, I haven’t had a Bowmore since. Standard official distillery bottlings of Bowmore have not been reviewed here on Dramface, and it may be that many are also repelled from Bowmore OB expressions.
However, I have read reviews here and elsewhere of the glorious liquid that Bowmore makes and is wonderfully revealed through IB releases. I have also heard of the legacy and lore of the distillery, as well as what it tasted like “in the good old days”. Bowmore has not made a return to the Shaw taste buds, due to a combination that we don’t get much Bowmore on this side of the pond, and if and when I have ever seen it in the wild it would grab my wallet and set it on fire.
So, I thought I had placed the memory of Bowmore squarely in the rearview mirror. But, as Jason was for Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies, it was a matter of time before it resurrected to torment me once again.
Review
Wasmund’s Rappahannock, Pot-stilled Single Malt Whisky, Batch 118, 48% ABV
US$41 (£32) paid.
I found this bottle while I still lived in Connecticut. I was on a bottle hunt, a month or so after returning from Scotland, and a local retailer had this on the shelf. As a fan and supporter of the new and energised American single malt whisky scene, this looked to be something I ought to try. The price tag was more than reasonable (so I thought), and it was naturally presented with natural colour. It was also non-chill-filtered, and bottled at a healthy 48% ABV. Into the basket it went and it came home with me. This was in late autumn 2022.
After getting the bottle home, I went to sample it. In all honesty, the memories of that uncorking and tasting were repressed until this past week when I was looking at my dwindling single malt collection on our kitchen shelf. Among those bottles, I realised there were two that had been shoved in the back of my old whisky cabinet and of whom I did not remember having sampled for some time. The first bottle, my Writer’s Tears Copper Pot, turned out to be surprisingly good when I revisited that bottle. This second bottle, once I looked at the label again, induced horrific flashbacks. Without doubt, I had repressed my thoughts and memories of the neck pour from this bottle.
The maroon coloured wax around the neck and over the bottle top was a nice touch. However, once I managed to scrape and peel it away, I was greeted with a screw top. This didn’t instil in me great positivity as to what was to come, and perhaps that was unfair. I am, for better or worse, a cork-first type of whisky guy. I remembered pouring a dram and, despite the screw top, was excited to try a new-to-me American single malt.
The bottle label brought good thoughts: pot stilled, non-chill filtered, 48% ABV, floor malted barley done at the distillery, malted barley dried and flavoured with a blend of fruit wood and hardwood smoke. Of course, I remember reading some vague and perhaps foreboding language from the back label: “The process results in a deep, rich range of finish flavours that is unique. It also happens to obtain optimal maturity much faster.” And then, at the bottom of the label, it states the liquid is “14 months old”.
Fourteen months? I understand that ageing in warmer climates can accelerate the maturation process, but…fourteen months? And, let’s be clear, Virginia does get warm in the summer, but it isn’t Abu Dhabi.
And with that, I recall bringing my Glencairn to my nose. I think I blacked out for a moment or two, ultimately regaining my senses that were screaming at me. That foul locker room note from Bowmore was there aplenty. My blackout was really an instinctive recoil. I kept at it, despite my body’s innate defence mechanisms’ efforts being overridden by a conscious effort to sample this whisky.
The nose was appalling. The taste, as I had jotted down in my notes, was of a candied sweetness layered on top of compost.
But, now more than a year later, I have vowed to get to know the bottles on my shelf, and this one has not been sampled for a year and a half. Perhaps it has opened up? Perhaps I can attribute that first tasting to a neck pour. I have some reservations, but we here at Dramface sometimes have to lean over the plate and take one for the home team…and so, I grab my bat and dig in inside the batter’s box.
Nose
Rotting wet and musty particle board or plywood in a tree house. That high school locker room aroma from the Bowmore 12 is here. Mashed green bananas. Wet logs from last night’s bonfire. Musty cedar closet. Petrichor on steroids, wet wood everywhere. Lingering throughout is a strange and sickly sweetness from which I cannot put my finger on.
Palate
It was reminiscent of being in that restaurant in Bowmore…I fought my body’s innate desire to put the glass down and push it away from me. Wet soil. Wet wood. Acrid and unpleasant. Herbal and vegetal. The whisky has a body that matches the 48% ABV, so there’s something going for it. Sharp edges. Casaba melon. This whisky fights you… Hard cherry candy. I also get the sensation of newly laid mulch. Ethanol/menthol warmth comes at the finish. Unfortunately, the finish goes on for a while.
The Dregs
After putting down my glass, and taking more than a few minutes and some large gulps of water to recover, I decided to do some online research. What I found made me laugh out loud.
Wasmund’s Rappahannock Single Malt Whisky is distilled and bottled by Copper Fox Distillery in Sperryville, Virginia. Oddly enough, I have heard good things about Copper Fox. They tout a number of single malt expressions, a few ryes, and some bourbons. As of yet, however, I have not tasted any of their expressions. Presently, there is nothing on the Copper Fox website that lists this Wasmunds’s expression as an item in their range of whiskies. It is mentioned on the page that speaks to the distillery’s history – and I will get to that, below – but by absence of this expression on the website it might make one think Copper Fox discontinued sale of this trainwreck of a bottle after receiving feedback and then having some introspection to change and correct course.
Remember when you were little and you did something terrible? Inevitably, your parents cornered you and asked with raised voice; “Did you do this?!” Those of us who admitted doing wrong were first told to clean up the mess made and thereafter given kudos for recognizing and ‘fessing up to the bad deed. This is what I would have hoped happened with Copper Fox…it would speak well of them. But no.
I read online that as of January 2019, this expression of Wasmund’s Rappahannock pot-stilled single malt had been rebranded with a new name; Copper Fox Single Malt. Oh dear. We can only hope that since 2019 the liquid has improved. It can’t get much worse than what is in this bottle.
Getting back to what made me laugh out loud was reading the write up on the Copper Fox website about the distillery’s history.
The owner of Copper Fox Distillery is Rick Wasmund. Mr. Wasmund’s story is told from his time as a lad to a young man who becomes enamoured with Scotch whisky. He had an idea to use the smoke from different woods (hard woods, fruit trees) instead of peat to flavour whiskies. He eventually went to Scotland and, believe it or not, he apprenticed at Bowmore Distillery where he was surrounded by whisky making and, specifically, engaged in the art of floor malting barley.
Mr. Wasmund, the tale continues, returned from Scotland and worked to create his own distillery. The first expression was the Wasmunds’s Original Single Malt Whisky. The Sperryville Distillery opened thereafter in 2005. Copper Fox, no doubt with the direction from Mr. Wasmund, is one of the few American distilleries that floor malts its own barley, and uses local fruitwoods (instead of peat) to smoke its barley.
Perhaps Mr. Wasmund picked up the worst of the flavour building properties of Bowmore and brought them forward, not unlike spreading a virus. Regardless of how this expression came to be, this Bowmore-esqe-putrid-teenage-rancid- clothing-stench-wet-soil-and-wet-wood expression is terrible. The link with the Bowmore 12 dram I had on Islay – both that locker room aroma on the nose and the fact that Copper Fox’ master distiller apprenticed at Bowmore – is uncanny. What are the odds that the namesake of this American malt with its similar notes did some work at, of all places, Bowmore?
Well, unlike my Writers’ Tears, I now have full memory as to why I stashed this in the back of my old whisky cabinet. Self preservation is a thing. Crazy to think that this expression was inexplicably allowed to be marketed as potable spirit. But, then again, Bowmore 12 doesn’t sit on shelves for very long as I understand it. And, yes, this is one person’s taste experience, and I regret going scorched earth on this, but my goodness, to my taste this is downright terrible. Admittedly, I had thoughts of a 1/10, but this does fit a 2/10 squarely: “Avoid. . . .difficult to find any positives and really not worthy of anyone’s attention.” Bingo.
Perhaps Copper Fox has come a long way with their single malts from the days (evidently pre-2019) when Wasmund’s was their brand. I will not completely shy away from sampling Copper Fox single malts, though I will grab a First Aid kit and a jug of water before trying. But, should you come across a dusty of this Wasmund’s whisky on a shelf somewhere, grab your children, run, and don’t look back.
Score: 2/10
